I actually love the site. It's true that flavored teas are right up there with awesome traditional ones, but it also means that there's a whole community of tea drinkers who are learning about and getting introduced to straight teas. There's a lot of openness and tolerance, and people are really curious to learn more.

It's part of the slippery slope phenomenon of tea. You start with a flavored tea, then you try the base tea on it's own.. then you see that someone who liked that tea also likes something called pu'er... and pretty soon you are building a pu'er cellar and a teahouse in the garden.

Just signed up. Same name as here. Haven't looked around too much yet but I had to add the tea shop I go to because it wasn't in Places. I'm obviously one of the very few in south Florida enthusiastic enough about tea which is expected but sad. Pacific northwest here I come:)

Spoonvonstup wrote:It's part of the slippery slope phenomenon of tea. You start with a flavored tea, then you try the base tea on it's own.. then you see that someone who liked that tea also likes something called pu'er... and pretty soon you are building a pu'er cellar and a teahouse in the garden.

Spoonvonstup wrote:Same handle- Spoonvonstup.It's part of the slippery slope phenomenon of tea. You start with a flavored tea, then you try the base tea on it's own.. then you see that someone who liked that tea also likes something called pu'er... and pretty soon you are building a pu'er cellar and a teahouse in the garden.

That's quite true. I've seen people shifting from flavored to tea to pure tea, but rarely see shifting in the other direction.

Interestingly, there have been quite a few discussions in the past weeks on steepsters about flavored vs. non-flavored tea. That may indicate the shifting. From the large number of flavored tea drinkers on steepster, I see a whole army of future non-flavored tea drinkers

I'm gingko on steepster. I do tea log from time to time. To me, compared with blog writing, it's a nice way of low-stake writing. Compared with forum posting, it's more traceable. Usually I just put down whatever in my mind over a cup of tea, without worrying how presentable it is

Also want to mention that I am gingko on teatra.de. It's not as crowded as steepster, but the site has quite a few creative and unique features that make me believe it's going to grow.